The Wall Street Journal Amazon.com Inc.'s recent breakup with longtime shipping partner FedEx Corp. shows how far the e-commerce giant has come in creating its own delivery network. Over the years, Amazon has played down its ambitions. But as consumers flock to its site for everything from toilet paper to TVs, Amazon has quietly blanketed the nation with hundreds of sprawling suburban warehouses and neighborhood package-sorting centers, flooded the streets with tens of thousands of vans and even taken to the airways. READ MORE

WERCBeen puzzling over a warehousing issue or challenge? Not sure where to turn for answers? Then don't miss WERC's first-ever LIVE Q&A webinar featuring insights and answers from a panel of industry experts. Panelists will answer questions submitted in advance by registrants about a broad range of topics (nothing warehousing-related is off limits!), such as: people and labor management; supply chain resilience; automation; creating actionable data; and WERC resources. Don't miss this free, 30-minute session on Thursday, September 12. Click here to register and submit your questions.

WERCVisit the active disaster micro-site and their volunteer/in-kind donation database for the most up-to-date information and for special requests. In addition, they have issued an official "STORM" advisory that provides several do's and don'ts for safe and efficient disaster preparation and relief.

WERCThis short, inspiring, real-world case study will show you how leaders at a shipping and 3PL company worked together to establish an innovative contract that benefits both parties. By committing to build a trusting relationship and working together to maximize profits, they achieved a 13 percent improvement in lines per hour, 6 percent increase in total lines per day, and a 12 percent decrease in labor hours per day. For this pair, the collaborative, Vested business model works. READ MORE

WERCIf you missed out, don’t worry! You can now access the full webinar recordings. Click here to find out more about our past webinars and past conference presentations — access the resources on-demand!

Supply Chain Management Review When the Supply Chain Risk Management Consortium came to be about 10 years ago, founder Greg Schlegel distinctly remembers the small percentage of workshop attendees whose companies had experienced supply chain risk events. "Four or five attendees (out of a total of 20 to 25) raised their hands," Schlegel recalls. "Now it’s 100% of attendees. We've stopped even asking the question."READ MORE

Logistics Management With no end in sight to the proliferation of advanced technologies, the supply chain software space is replete with acronyms that range from IoT to AI to ML to RPA, not to mention Big Data, blockchain and myriad other innovations. Concepts that were emerging only five years ago have since become commonplace in a corner of the business world that's centered around visibility, connectivity and efficiency.READ MORE

Supply Chain DiveWhile warehouse managers and supply chain leaders may be eager to acquire robots and automated technologies, the large capital investments and expertise required can often be a barrier to adoption. Following the trends of the software as a service industry, robotics companies are now offering robotics as a service solutions that make robot deployments more feasible than ever.READ MORE

Logistics Management It was hard to escape the economic realities of the transportation capacity crunch in 2018. DAT Solutions, which tracks trucking industry data, reported a 31% increase in the national average spot rate for freight trucking in February 2018 compared to February 2017.READ MORE

Supply Chain Dive On Sept. 24, the Universal Postal Union will conduct perhaps its most consequential meeting in more than 100 years. The UPU, a global organization backed by a treaty that sets shipping rates from country to country, has a Congress that meets every four years. But an extraordinary Congress meeting of the full 192-country membership only meets when two-thirds of the members agree to do so.READ MORE

ForbesThere are a number of unique security and networking challenges that will continue to arise as manufacturing IT environments integrate internet of things devices, 5G communications technology and multiaccess edge computing capabilities. While there are distinct advantages that these technologies bring to manufacturing operations, if only traditional network technologies are accounted for, there will be gaps in an organization's ability to support and secure high-velocity, high-demand supply chain operations.READ MORE

Optricity
With the rate of change, it is easy to get caught up within the hype of the latest trend, but warehousing operations must not lose sight of the essential storage and retrieval elements that, when recharged, can boost productivity. Why should you defragment your warehouse? Systems require activation and process rejuvenation to run in sustainment mode and, through infusing sustainable slotting into daily operations, many benefits can be gained including proper space utilization, shortened order fulfillment routes throughout the warehouse, as well as replenishment reductions.READ MORE

Supply & Demand Chain The supply chain analytics market is likely to witness growth due to increasing awareness about benefits of handling business data along with forecasting accuracy in supply chain analytics solutions. Rapid increase in volumes of business data across industries have prompted the need to adopt analytics solutions in order to convert raw data into meaningful information. READ MORE

When it came time to grow their business, Healing Hands Scrubs, a medical scrubs retailer, decided to invest in 6 River Systems collaborative warehouse robots. Since then, the company has doubled pick rates and reduced walking by 75%.

Learn more about Healing Hands and 6 River Systems in this case study.

Inbound LogisticsIn March 2019, when U.S. Coast Guard Deputy Commandant for Operations Daniel Abel spoke at a panel for The Brookings Institution, he cited reports from shippers and ships: "I've had a cyber breach and I'm inbounding to your port." Cyber risks to supply chains in shipping, transportation and logistics have only intensified since then.READ MORE